The Black Line
by Redoran
Summary: (All OCs, with some reference to actual characters) A Metro line, flooded and abandoned two hundred years ago. A band of mercenaries, hired to clear it out. Sounds like a simple job... (Rated T for now; may be moved up to M if things get too explicit)
1. Chapter 1

_Gooood evening, wastelanders! This is Galaxy News Radio, and you're listening to me, your beloved host: Three Dog! Bow-wow! I hope you've all had time to enjoy a glass of Aqua Pura by now. And if you have, you'll know what I mean when I say that it tastes like a little slice of heaven. Not like that old mucky Potomac water we had to drink. Ha! I'd like to make a toast right now: To James, and his son, the famous, the fantabulous, the heroic Lone Wanderer. If you're still in radio range, my friend, I thank you on behalf of all the Capital Wasteland, and I'm sure I speak for everyone down here in DC who hasn't succumbed to rad poisoning when I say that we hope you'll come back one day and tell us all about your adventures out there in the Wild West – god knows I do, because that would earn me some great ratings! Hahaha!_

_And now, without further ado, it's time for tonight's news segment. I'll try to keep it up-beat, because it's Christmas, but the Wasteland doesn't exactly give me the best material, if you know what I mean! Here we go, kids…_

* * *

><p>"Turn that thing off, will you?" the bearded man named Chief said.<p>

"Why?" Pup asked.

"Because you never know what might be listening down here, and I'm not planning to take any chances."

"If there's something out there, it's going to hear us anyway, radio or not," Pup complained. "Three Dog's Christmas broadcasts are always a hoot." Pup was fresh meat. Barely even old enough to use a rifle. It was also his first job, and it showed in the way his big blue eyes were even wider than usual, and big creases furrowed his usually-clear brow.

"No radio," Chief said again. Pup opened his mouth, but Hughes, who was sitting over from him, shook his head and he took the hint. Hughes went back to cleaning his sabre as Pup turned the radio off. Three Dog's voice faded, leaving us nothing but the creaks and groans of the Metro to entertain us.

It was Christmas day, December 2277. We celebrated the festivities in the middle of a ruined, hostile subway tunnel, not knowing whether we'd live to see out the week. It was on nights like this that we usually broke out the Jet and got so drugged up that we forgot the world, but we were fresh out. The boy was struggling with the idea of celebrating Christmas in such a horrible place, but I and the others had gotten used to it by that point. There were seven of us all together, including myself, Pup, and Chief. Hughes and Nicole were in the camp with us, Hughes taking care of his equipment (as he did in all of his spare time) and Nicole munching absently on a strip of dried Brahmin meat. Abigail and Harry were on watch duty further down the tunnel, making sure nothing crept up on us while we settled in and made ourselves comfortable. I'll go into the particular details on the members of our crew as they come up, but for now all you need to know are our names, and our purpose: We were mercenaries, and someone, a generous investor who claimed to live "around here," was paying us a lot of caps to clear the muties out of this section of the eastern line. Why? I don't know, and I don't imagine Chief deigned to ask. If I was feeling optimistic I'd suggest he was just a simple philanthropist seeking to make life easier for the locals, but optimism rarely pays off. In those cases it's usually better not to know what purpose you're really serving, just in case you don't agree with it. The work of a mercenary is too hard and too ambiguous for such trivial things as morals, and it's about time the paragon-types like Reilly's Rangers learned that truth. But I'm letting myself get distracted.

It was harder to settle in without the music, I'll be honest. Every sound of the metro was amplified a hundred-fold. The creak of old metal piping off down the tunnel sounded more like the scream of some skulking monster. The scuttle of radroaches in the darkness brought back dark memories of fighting hordes of fire ants out near Greyditch. I tried to distract myself from that thought by listening to small talk, but there wasn't much conversation to be had. Hughes was relentlessly scrubbing away at the barrel of his M1903 Springfield now, oblivious to the world, and Chief was staring into the fire, chin resting on his hand, eyes glazed over. He was obviously deep in thought. We all had our own ways of shutting out the horrible worlds we usually found ourselves in; Hughes's was in action, Chief's was in thought, and mine was in whiskey. So, after understanding that no interesting conversation was going on, I burrowed down into the folds of my overcoat, settling in for a night of silent drinking.

Then the new kid met my eyes. I'm not the best at observing people, not by far, but even I could tell that he was troubled. I knew that I should probably give him some comforting words, but that would mean maintaining a conversation, and the kid was likely to get whiney. The bottle looked infinitely more alluring to me.

Nicole took up the challenge instead. She stood and walked over to him.

"You look restless, new meat," she said, toting her combat shotgun on her shoulder and smiling. "Do you wanna go for a walk? Scouting the area might help you sleep better tonight."

"Take another with you," Chief said, eyes never leaving the fire. Nicole looked at me.

It took me a while to take the hint. "But it's Christmas!" I protested.

"Abi'd be my first choice, but she's on watch duty. Besides, you could use the exposure, too. Come on Templeton. Show me that you _are_ actually a man." She offered me a hand.

It's worth adding here that I'm not much of a fighter. I spent all my youth in Rivet City, first as an assistant in the Museum and then as an apprentice in the infirmary, so I knew my way around a scalpel and a roll of bandages better than the average man. It wasn't the most exciting, and there weren't many others in the city my age, but it was a nice life, a comfortable life. So why did I decide to shun all that to become a combat medic for a pack of mercs? It sounds crazy, but trust me, I had a good reason. I'll get around to that in time, but it's not essential right now.

Seeing that I wasn't going to get the quiet night I wanted, I took a long, hard swig from my flask, then reluctantly took Nicole's hand. She hauled me to my feet. I dropped my rucksack of medical supplies and took out my knife and revolver, fastening one to either side of my belt. The new boy was on his feet, too, tucking a small pistol into his holster. Nicole looked him up and down. "You almost look like a fighter," she remarked. "Just without the usual layer of dirt, blood and grime. But don't worry, we'll soon fix that." The boy beamed at that and headed in the direction of a side tunnel.

"I bet you fifty caps he dies before we're done here," I muttered.

"I don't know. He's eager; isn't that where we all started off?"

"Most Raiders are eager," I remarked, "and most of them couldn't hit a Yao Guai at ten paces."

Nicole winked at me. "Then I guess we'll just have to teach him."

"I can hardly wait," I said. Nicole picked up a few spare clips for her shotgun and a handful of grenades, which she attached to the strap she wore across her chest. "Are they really necessary?" I asked.

"You never know," she replied, smiling.

* * *

><p>We went down a branching tunnel, going south along one of the old lines. Nicole took point, to use a soldier's term, because she had the close combat weapon. The tunnel stank even more here than it did at the camp. A sludge of stagnant water pooled around our feet, up to our ankles, and old, hatched Mirelurk eggs clung to the brickwork, now the nests of radroaches and rats and other pests. I lingered at the back, behind Pup, thinking that if I stayed quiet they'd just forget about me, and I could drink myself into a stupor in peace. Unfortunately, it didn't work.<p>

"Get up here, Templeton. I'm not having you hiding at the back and missing out on the action." She spoke to Pup without looking back. "So, new meat, how much experience you got?"

Pup pulled out his gun and aimed it. "I know my way around a gun."

Nicole laughed. "I should hope so, else I'd be wondering why you're here in the first place."

"They used to call me Pup back home, and this here's Big Wolf, my silenced pistol."

"A silencer, eh? Impressive. May come in useful. And how well can you shoot 'Big Wolf'?" Her tone made her sound like she was humouring a child – which she almost was.

The sudden gunfire made me jump – even if it was silenced. In the space of a few seconds, Pup fired six shots, hitting six different pieces of debris scattered across the tunnel in front of us. Nicole stopped walking and stared at him. I had to supress a smirk at her shock. "So you really can use that gun," she said.

Pup frowned. "I did say so, didn't I?"

"I guess we won't have to teach him after all," I quipped.

Nicole ignored me. "Yes, you did. Where did you learn to shoot like that?"

"I grew up on the streets. I learned that if you can't shoot straight, you're not gonna last long out here."

"Where did you grow up?" she asked.

"I don't know. Just on the streets. I used to do drug-running for a local gang. I'm great at getting into small places and at losing people, if I need to. I never learned to read, though, so I could never make out the roadsigns, and I was too afraid to ask in case they beat me."

Nicole gave him a look. "How old are you, Pup?"

"Fifteen, miss."

"Miss! Ha! Call me Nicole. Or Nic. You must be quite tough, to have made it here to D.C. by yourself."

Pup didn't reply.

The rest of the tunnel was quiet, much to Nicole's obvious disappointment. We did a loop, going about twenty minutes' walk further and then cutting through the service rooms. It was all empty, all looted – someone had even taken the wiring out of the maintenance protectron. We found one safe, but it was rusted shut and caked in grime from the fetid water. So we carried on and made our way to the next tunnel, then worked our way back in the direction of our camp, keeping our eyes open for ghouls and mirelurks – both were said to haunt this part of the line.

The area we'd been sent into had been called the Black Line before the war. It branches away from Abernathy Station, the flooded, ghoul-infested station on the White Line that sensible people avoid, and snakes east, into an area that had once been part of D.C., until a great wave – caused by the explosion of a nuke just off shore from the city, according to Abraham Washington, the guy who manages the museum back in Rivet City – drowned that half of the city. The water has emptied from the streets now, but the Metro tunnels are still flooded, meaning the only way to travel in east D.C. is by land, which is a great way to get sniped by raiders or ambushed by super mutants, I've heard. So no-one goes there. For two centuries, the drowned tunnels of the Black Line had been left untouched, becoming the lairs of ferals, mirelurks, roaches, and god knows what else. Until we were sent down there. Some even said that packs of Deathclaws made their homes in those dank tunnels…

We weren't being paid enough.

* * *

><p>One part of the passage had collapsed on top of an old train car, so we pried off the door and used it like a tunnel-within-a-tunnel to get to the other side. The train car hadn't been touched before, so we found food and batteries and all kinds of things in the bags of the passengers. I found someone's wallet, which contained a host of pre-war money, and a picture of a family.<p>

I looked down at the charred skeleton and felt an odd twinge in my stomach. I say odd because it is not rare by any means to come across charred corpses in the Wasteland, and I'm more than used to killing people and watching men die, but something about this man reached out to me. Seeing this photograph, a man with cropped hair and a green turtleneck, with his arms around two children, I began to wonder about his life. He was standing by a woman who I assumed was his wife. I wondered how people like that used to celebrate Christmas. I'd heard rumours, obviously; Hughes told me they used to put big green trees up in their houses and cover them with colourful plastic. Being a pre-war ghoul, I guess he knew better than anyone else. It sounded ridiculous to me. Why would you waste something as precious as a proper green tree for the sake of an old tradition? The more I studied the picture, the more I noticed the differences between us and them. Were people really that clean before the war? I found myself strangely envious; I bet they didn't smell, either.

"What've you got there? Anything good?" Nicole asked.

"No, just pre-war money. Junk." I slipped the photo into my pocket; I don't know why. Technically speaking it was just junk, just trash left behind by the civilisation that destroyed the world. But I found that carrying it gave me some weird hope. Maybe one day I'd be able to settle down somewhere nice, and be able to worry about washing clothes or feeding my kids, rather than where to get the next dose of RadAway, or whether my death was lurking around the next corner. It was a good fantasy, and I distracted myself with it as we wound our way back to our camp, me walking backwards so as to make sure nothing came up behind us.

A guttural howl and a round of silenced gunshots tore me back to reality. I turned, but too slowly. It was some kind of feral, but nothing like any I'd ever seen before. Its eyes had rotted away years ago, by the looks of it, and its torso was shrunken and unnatural. But its long limbs and brittle bones still held a terrifying strength. It used this strength to launch itself at Nicole and take her off her feet, slamming her into the tunnel wall. Her body slumped to the ground; it didn't take a combat medic to see that she'd died instantly. Pup fired two more shots, but he must have missed because the monster was unharmed. Instead its eyeless head snapped in our direction, its sockets focussing right on the boy even though there was no way it could possibly see him. _No way, zombie,_ I thought and darted in the way, firing a round of shots from my own gun. Two hit the thing in the chest, and one in its head, and the stopping power of my revolver sent it flying back. None of the bullets penetrated the skin.

"What the hell?!" I heard Pup shriek behind me. But there was no time to dwell on it. It was already getting back up. I did a combat roll, getting myself covered in stagnant, stinking water, and snatched up Nicole's shotgun, which had been knocked from her hands in the first attack. I have no idea where it came from; I'd never done a combat roll before in my life. Maybe adrenaline took over. I aimed the shotgun right at the ghoul's brain and pulled the trigger.

The shards wedged in the skin of its cheeks, its chin, its forehead, and its empty eye-sockets. For a terrifying second it seemed to have survived even that. It stumbled towards me, jaw moving like a broken motor, as if it was trying to form words. A jaundiced hand reached for me. The cold fingers raked my coat. I jammed the barrel of the gun up under its jaw and fired, once, twice, three times – as many times as it took before brains finally sprayed from the roof of its skull. I gave it a nudge with the butt of my weapon and it fell backwards.

I turned on Pup. "How the fuck did that thing get past you?"

His lip quivered and he tried to say something, but just ended up stammering over his words. I dismissed him with a growl and walked over to the thing's corpse. There was a pipe on the wall, and an iron grate lying on the floor, its hinges shattered. Had it been hiding, waiting for us? _Impossible. Ferals aren't that clever…_ It was more likely the thing had managed to get itself stuck in the pipes, and the rest just a coincidence. But it was still a troubling thought. I slung its body over my shoulder and started to walk. "Pick up her body, and follow me. Quickly."

"You saved me. That… that was pretty cool, Mr Templeton."

I moved my finger off the trigger of the gun, in case I was tempted to use it on him. "Yes, and it was your job to cover Nic. You failed."

"I'm sorry. I was scared. I panicked, and –"

I spun, shoving my face within inches of his. "Look, new meat; you can train yourself to shoot like the best of them, but if you can't keep your gun-arm steady in a fight, it's not worth anything, is it?"

He stammered. "I – I won't let it happen again, sir."

"You best not." I genuinely thought about making sure he never would again, right there. I'd never been particularly close to Nicole, but you form certain bonds with people, fighting alongside them. We were more like family than business partners, and I felt anger towards this outsider who – in my eyes - had caused her death. But I forced myself to let him go and think it through with a clear mind. "This was no ordinary ghoul," I said, beginning to walk again.

"What was it?" He asked, following after me. He had this irritating, pitiful expression on his face that made me want to punch him. I understood suddenly why people called him Pup.

"I don't know. Abi's the mutie expert. Ask her. Of course, give her a week to get over the fact you let her best friend die. Right now she'd probably be more interested in killing you than helping you."

I saw that the boy was visibly shaking now. "I didn't mean to! I didn't. I even hit it once, but it shook it off. I was told that ghouls were easy to bring down… I didn't think it would take so much…"

The thing had been much stronger than the usual ghoul. I supposed the boy couldn't be blamed. I swallowed my anger and forced myself to sound comforting. "Don't worry. You're right, it was stronger than a normal ghoul. And more intelligent. It ambushed us; I'm not an expert, but I'm sure that ferals aren't usually that coordinated. I'll have a word with Chief about what happened. Then he'll decide how to discipline you. And we'll decide how to deal with these things, if there are more of them."

The boy's eyes widened at the mention of Chief, but he bit his lip. "All my fault…" he said. "I was the reason we left the camp."

I didn't say anything. I totally agreed with him, to be honest, but I figured the kid didn't want to hear that. I wondered what Nicole might have done in my situation; probably have torn the kid's guts out. She'd probably have had something snarky to say to me, as well, if she'd survived. "So, you _can_ shoot straight after all, Templeton," or something along those lines. Not that it took much skill to shoot a feral with a shotgun at point-blank. It had to be said, she'd brought a much-needed sense of cheer to our party. _Merry Christmas, Nic_, I thought, and that made me think of the photograph in my pocket. I slung the shotgun on my back and took it out. The more I looked at it, the more I realised that that way of life was lost to us forever. I'd never have a family, or children, or clothes to wash or meals to cook. I laughed at myself. A mercenary, trudging through some dark, monster-infested subway, shotgun in one hand, corpse in the other, dreaming of a family! It sounded like a joke. I let the photo fall from my hands and crushed it into the murky water with my boot. _Some good luck charm this turned out to be_. I fumbled in another deep pocket and pulled out my whiskey flask. _This, on the other hand…_

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Let me know if you liked this, so I know whether or not I should continue with this story!<em>


	2. Chapter 2

Chief touched Nicole's forehead with two fingers and closed his eyes. We'd lain her down on a table in one of the service rooms and cleared all the junk out, making a sort of temporary shrine for her. "We were low on numbers as it was. She was a good fighter, and a good friend." He turned to me. He'd donned his warpaint: red and black lines drawn with blood and charcoal under each eye, in the way he did when he was in mourning. Chief's traditions were odd to me at first, but I'd learned to accept them. He told me once that he'd been raised on one of the Indian reservations, one that had survived the Great War and returned to their old ways. He knew his way around a tomahawk and a 10mm. I'd thought the tomahawk remark was a joke at first, until my first mission with him, when I saw him de-brain a super mutant with a single, casual blow. And Chief always took the deaths of his team members personally. His voice was calm, as always, but his eyes were fierce. "Where is the boy now?"

"Disappeared in the night," I said. The boy had proved true to his word on that aspect; gone without a trace. I remembered his words. _I'm great at getting into small places, and at losing people, if I need to._ I doubted we'd ever see the boy again.

"He's more afraid of you than the ghouls and deathclaws, Chief," Harry said from where he stood leaning against a wall, cigarette hanging from his mouth. Harry was a ragged man, with long straggly hair that splayed out into loose ends, and he needed a shave. His grey eyes were absent of any feeling. I knew next to nothing about him, or his past, but that didn't bother me so much. Each to his own.

Chief's mouth twitched. "The boy should have faced his punishment with honour."

"Would you, Chief?" Harry said. "If you'd been raised by raiders and drug-runners, who beat you if you made a sound, and made their money robbing and swindling? The poor Pup probably doesn't even know what honour is."

Chief fell quiet. Harry had been with us about a year now, but Chief still wasn't used to being contradicted so directly. Harry, on the other hand, didn't seem to care about anything. Which made him one of the best fighters a man could possibly be, but the very worst company. "Come on, Harry," I said, "let me take a look at your shoulder. See how it's healing up." I led him from the room and back to the camp, to my rucksack where I kept all my medical stuff. Harry had been hit in the shoulder by some stray shrapnel about three months ago, while covering our retreat from a band of slavers. It was healing up nicely, but I still liked to check up on it now and then, and it gave me a reason to get him out of the room before things had a chance to escalate. Besides, Harry wasn't the best at making sure he kept the wound cleaned and healthy, so I liked to keep a close eye on it.

"You've gotta stop doing that," I said, as I pulled up three stools and formed a makeshift surface for him to lie on.

"Doing what?" he asked, lying down.

"Talking to Chief like that. I know he's not the easiest to get along with sometimes, but he has his traditions, and traditions die hard."

"Ain't that the truth."

"He's in mourning," I said. "Chief takes that kind of thing very seriously."

"Why? It doesn't make any difference. She's dead. That's that. She's the fifth one to go in the last six months. The only difference putting her on an old table in a storage room makes is that the rats will have a harder time getting to all that meat."

"You really are the most morose man I've ever met," I said, and plucked the cigarette from his lips.

He sat up in protest. "Hey! Why'd you do that?"

"It's a bad habit. You don't know what that crap does to your insides. It's killing you."

"So I've been told," he said, then lay back and let me get to his bandage. I rolled up his jacket sleeve and examined the dressing. It was crusted over with dry blood, and smelt bad.

"I told you to come to me when the bandage turns bad so I can fix you up with a new one," I said.

He shrugged. "Why does it matter?"

"Because if it gets infected…." I began to see where he was going. "You really do want to die, don't you?" I waited for him to reply, but he didn't, so I just went to work. I cut away the old bandage with a pair of rusty scissors (I'd been meaning to find a replacement for them for weeks, but so far hadn't found any), then splashed the wound with some whiskey (it wasn't all for drinking). I washed the blood and puss away as best I could with Aqua Pura, getting as far into the wound as I dared without making him scream, then bound it anew. _At least I still have a decent supply of fresh bandages_, I thought. All the way through the procedure he remained still and silent. "Good as new," I said, but he ignored me. I began to pull his jacket sleeve back over the bandage, but then I noticed something. Something pink, decorated with a flowery pattern, tied around his arm. He pushed my hand away and pulled his jacket over it quickly, glaring at me. "What was that?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said, sitting up. He winced with the sudden pain of moving and I tried to tell him to lie back down because he needed to rest it, but he was on his feet before I'd finished. "I don't want to die, Templeton. I'm just not very keen on living. Do you see the difference?" He walked away. There was no point in chasing after him, I decided; I was lucky enough that he'd even agreed to let me look at the wound in the first place.

"He's got more secrets than we give him credit for," Chief said beside me. I hadn't even noticed him approach.

"You aren't mad at him?"

"No, no. Just curious. I like to think that we're like a family unit. Families share all their secrets with each other. He still treats us like we're strangers."

"It's only been a year," I said. "Give him time. He'll open up. Or not." Chief looked at me and I shrugged. "Family units tend to keep more secrets from each other than any other, in my experience."

"Hmph. Perhaps." Chief seemed to ponder that for a while, but made nothing more of it. He clapped his hands together. "Right. Let's have a look at this feral of yours."

* * *

><p>"So, this is the beast," Chief said, "tell me. What happened in the tunnel?"<p>

Chief and I stood either side of the ghoul's body, which was lying on an old ticket-serving desk that we'd cleared off. Abi was having a poke around in its head, which I'd thoroughly cleared out with shotgun shells; as our resident mutant expert, she was trying to see if it matched up to any of the different varieties of ferals she'd been taught about in her lessons on 'Beasts of the Wasteland' during her training. Abi was a proper soldier, if any of us were one; she'd spent five years serving with the Rivet City police, and knew all the tricks and tips of urban warfare (and a few more) that they taught in the academy there, as well as how to properly deal with any of the perils of the wasteland. Her knowledge had saved us dozens of times in the past. She also had the best equipment of us all: proper combat armour – painted black of course, in the Rivet City fashion – complete with riot helmet, riot shield, police baton, and 10mm submachine gun. Besides Chief himself, she was also the longest-serving member of our little group, having seen dozens of others join and die in her time. And I fancied her to bits, but that's not entirely relevant. She'd taken Nic's death particularly hard. She'd spent the night of the death moping around in the tunnels alone, shooting radroaches and ghouls, as she liked to do when she was angry or stressed. I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn't find the words. Besides, she was a soldier and I was a doctor (and not even a good one); what kind of comfort could I possibly have given? (No. I know what you're thinking, but no. She wasn't interested in me in _that_ way, not even a little bit. Besides, we were professsionals!)

I recounted the events of the tunnel incident to Chief. "It looked just like a normal feral to me, at first," I said, "'cept its eyes were missing and it was a bit bigger. But it was more like fighting a super mutant than a ghoul. Neither Pup's nor my shots could pierce it. It only seemed to feel anything when I shot it right in the head with Nic's shotgun – and even then it kept coming. And… it was waiting for us in the pipe. Almost like it had been waiting for us to pass. I know that sounds crazy, because ghouls don't usually show that kind of tactical planning, but that's how it seemed."

Chief made a thoughtful noise, then turned to Abi. "Recognise it?"

She shook her head. "Never seen a feral like this before. But at a guess? I'd say it's similar to a roamer."

"In what way?" Chief asked.

"Roamers are tougher because of their past experience in the military. The tougher the ghoul pre-rad, the tougher post-rad. Or it may have been exposed to abnormally large amounts of radiation. As for the eyes, I have no idea. You said it seemed like it could still see you?"

"Yes, it did. It looked right at Pup when he shot at it," I said.

She hmm'ed. "Maybe it just had a heightened sense of hearing or smell. Like I said, I've never seen anything like it. There are hundreds of different potential reasons for it acting the way it did."

Chief nodded. "I suppose there's no way to know for sure. These ferals must be the reason we were sent down here. Jones told us to expect nothing more than normal ferals and mirelurks." Jones was the guy who had hired us. His name probably wasn't Jones, but most people that hire mercs don't like to use their real names – it's bad for their reputation. Chief clenched his fists. "I hate it when they lie. With the right planning, the right equipment, Nicole's death could have been avoided."

"He probably expected to save a few caps by making the job sound easier than it is," I said.

Chief took a deep breath. "Well, there's nothing we can do but complete the contract now. Once it's done, I'll discuss matters of payment with our employer." The way he said 'discuss' made me glad that I was a mercenary, plumbing the depths of a metro tunnel infested with super-powered ghouls, and not the man who paid for us. "He'll pay for Nic to have a proper funeral service in Rivet City, for one."

"Hear, hear," I said.

"We'll finish this one for Nic," Chief said. "And we'll finish it properly. No more deaths."

"What are we going to do about the boy?" Abi insisted.

"He ran away," Chief said. "He forfeited the job. So he's no longer one of us. From what Templeton has told us, if the boy hadn't ran away, I would have spared him. But running away has proven his guilt in my eyes. Look, I don't want you chasing after him, Abi, but if you do happen to run into him down here… I can't protect him."

"That's a little drastic, isn't it?" I said.

"Our job is life or death, Templeton," Chief told me. "You know that best of all. It's dangerous. One faulty link in the chain, and we all go down. As for the morals of killing him, well. I'm no sheriff of Megaton."

I didn't like this very much, but I did see where Chief and Abi were coming from. If the boy had faced his punishment like a man, they probably would have let him off. But running was the worst thing he could have done. And, as much as I sympathised with the boy, I wasn't willing to go against my family to save him, if it came to it. So I stayed quiet and silently prayed that the boy was as good at hiding as he made out to be.

"So, what do we do about these things?" I eventually asked, gesturing at the corpse.

Chief gave it some thought. "We'll send a small group up the tunnel tomorrow. See if we can map out the area, and find out if these things have any kind of central lair. Just a scouting mission. We want to learn as much as possible before we risk a direct confrontation. Potential routes of attack, escape routes, et cetera."

_What a stupid idea,_ I thought. _There's no way they'll get back without an injury or a death. If one of these things nearly took down a group of three in the tunnel… how would three stand a chance against a horde of them, even if they were more prepared?_ I comforted myself with the knowledge that I, at least, with my limited abilities, would not be sent on this mission.

Abi had a little smile on her face, to my astonishment. "Very wisely spoken. Most would just go in, shooting, without a care in the world for the risk. Can I go?" _Trust the soldier to look forward to such a mission,_ I thought, and I was once again reminded of the world of differences between me and my all-time crush.

"If I behaved like a typical merc leader, we'd all be dead by now," he replied. Then smiled. "Abi, I want you to lead the expedition. I want you to take two with you. I'll let you choose who."

"We'll be back within the day," she promised him.

"Good. The quicker we can get this over and done with, the better." He slapped her shoulder. "It's good to see some enthusiasm in the group for once." Chief loosened his tomahawk at his waist, and fastened his 10mm in his holster. "I'm on watch tonight," he said, and bid us goodnight.

"Kiss-ass," I said to Abi. She shrugged.

"I've known him longer than all of you. I have a duty to be a kiss-ass." She said it with a smirk on her face. Her cheeks always dimpled when she smiled. I caught myself staring and went to look away, to hide my reddening cheeks… but I noticed her looking at me attentively with her big almond eyes. I know I said we were professionals, that there was no chance of anything ever happening between us, that she was a soldier and I was a coward, but somehow she still managed to catch my eyes, hold them, and convince me that there was something more behind them. I made to leave the room, because I figured my cheeks were blooming like pre-war roses in spring. She caught my arm.

"I need to talk to you, Templeton."

"What?" I asked, fighting to keep my voice casual. _She felt something, too. Is she going to bring it up? Oh God, what do I say? It's been so long since I've done anything with a woman…_

"I want you to come with us tomorrow."

I distinctly remember the sinking feeling I felt in my chest when she dropped that on me, even to this day. Not only had her look meant absolutely nothing, but I was also being recruited for Chief's death mission. Like I said before: I was not the best of fighters, and certainly not the bravest. I was just a doctor who somehow managed to end up serving with a merc group. The last thing I wanted was to go anywhere near a place where I might run in to more of those things. And I'm pretty sure I used all these excuses to try to get out of going with her, but she just shook her head with an amused smile. "Ironically, you're the only one of us who's got combat experience with these things. Besides, I want to see you do a combat roll." She laughed. "What if one of us gets hurt? And what if we run into that kid and I need someone to persuade me out of killing him where he stands? Face it, Templeton, you're coming with us." She raised an eyebrow. "Of course, if you don't want to go, you could always take it up with Chief."

"You had me at Chief," I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

She laughed again, a warm sound that suited her summery face. "I thought I might." I hated her.

I thrust my hand into my pocket and took a long swill of whiskey, and decided that I was going to get _very_ drunk that night. At the time, I believed it would be the last chance I'd ever have to do so.


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: Apologies for the delay with this one; exam season at university. Besides, I like to make sure the things I'm putting up here are of a good quality. I hope you enjoy and are all having a lovely end of year :)_

* * *

><p>I sat on a stool by the sandbags at the end of our camp, staring out into the dark of the tunnel, cradling my aching head and cursing my life with all the swear words I could think of. <em>Why did I drink so much?<em> It had seemed like a good idea at the time. But now I was feeling all the effects of it, and it dawned on me that I would want my senses to be the best they could possibly be for the day ahead. I groaned again, at my head and my stupidity.

"Stop whining, Templeton," Hughes said. He was pacing the entrance of the tunnel back and forth, sabre at his waist, Springfield in hand, and all his family's medals pinned to his uniform. I, on the other hand, sat there in my thick coat, worn boots, and old jeans. I had my knife at my belt, but had exchanged the rusty revolver for Nicole's combat shotgun. After all, it seemed to have worked well for me so far, and Nic wouldn't be using it any more.

Hughes tossed me a bottle of Aqua Pura from his pack. "Sober up, doc. If you get hurt, there's no-one to patch you up, and then where would we be?"

Hughes was the third man Abi had chosen for our mission. He was a good pick. He'd been around since the bombs fell, so he knew the wasteland better than anyone. You'd think his experience would've made him more relaxed, but if anything, the centuries had only made him worse. I think he still felt the effect of the Great War every day. He was always moving, never idle; always cleaning his weapons, pacing, volunteering for watch duty. Failing any of that, he would try to distract himself with conversation – almost as a last resort. It was as if he thought that if he sat still too long, the bad memories would catch up with him. But for someone who was afraid of the past, he carried a lot of it with him. His family had a long tradition of soldiering, he said. His great-great grandfather had fought in something that he called the Second World War, which was a disaster that happened in the time before the actual Great War, and the first time nukes were used in warfare. Hughes had been a soldier in the Great War in 2077. He still wore his uniform – or what was left of it, which was a helmet and a worn-and-torn set of combat fatigues. And he always carried with him his grandfather's M1903 Springfield rifle, his .38 Smith and Wesson revolver, and his ceremonial sabre, as heirlooms. They all worked pretty well, too. He may have been mentally disturbed, but he knew every little trick the wasteland could throw at you, as well as how to kill anything that lived in it. He was a calming influence on me, I think, on that mission.

"We'd be lying dead in some grimy flooded tunnel," I answered.

Hughes nodded as he paced. "Not in the best of moods, eh? I don't blame you. You're not who I'd have picked for this."

"Refreshingly honest," I said. "I agree. I have no idea why I'm coming with you."

"Seems like Abi wants to get a measure of your worth." He grinned, a ghoulish grin with far too many teeth showing – mostly through the holes in his cheeks. "Don't worry. You'll be with two soldiers, with over two centuries of experience between us. Though, granted, that is fairly one-sided. Just do what I tell you and you'll be fine."

"I will, as long as you tell me to stay at the back and keep out of the way."

Hughes laughed. "The back's the most dangerous place. I was thinking we'd put you in the middle, where you can't get hurt."

"Well, you won't get any argument from me," I said.

Hughes laughed again, in the dry, crackly way that ghouls do. "You're a funny man, Templeton. Why do we call you Templeton? Don't you have a first name?"

"Of course I do," I said. "Why do we call you Hughes?"

"I'll tell you why if you tell me."

This seemed a little odd to me, but I shrugged and went through with it. "My name's so normal that people started calling me Templeton to distinguish between me and the others. It's John. And yours?"

"A perfectly valid reason. I go by Hughes because my first name is ridiculous."

I sat up, interested. "What is it?"

He hesitated for a moment. "Havelock."

I laughed despite myself. "Havelock! Havelock Hughes!"

"Shut up, smoothskin. It's a family name. Or was. I guess there won't be any more Havelocks after me."

"Why not?" I asked.

He gave me a look with his watery, yellowed eyes. "Why do you think? If my face looks this bad, how bad do you think I am… down there?"

"Oh. Right. Gotchya. No little Havelocks."

He winced, but with a smile. "Alright, alright. It's a dumb name. Just don't go shouting it around. None of the others know."

"None of the others? How come you told me?"

He shrugged. "Because you used your surname, too. I thought we might be in the same situation. I was evidently mistaken."

I smiled. "Keep searching, you'll find someone. Chief doesn't use his real name. Nor did Pup, actually." Thinking about Pup brought up mixed emotions of both hatred and regret. "What did you think of the boy?" I asked.

Havelock pressed a rotting finger to his lips. "Shh. Not now. Here comes Abi. Probably best not to mention it around her."

I looked around and saw Abi on her way over to us. "Yeah, best not," I agreed.

Abi was in her full war-gear – polished combat armour, riot shield strapped to her arm, submachine gun at her belt (along with half a dozen spare clips, her baton, and her pack of supplies), and a polycarbonate riot helmet on her head, visor down. The lights of the metro glinted off of it, obscuring her face. She strode in our direction with utter confidence. I looked down at my own measly equipment and felt somewhat inadequate.

"I'd wolf whistle if I could," Havelock Hughes said. I looked at him quizzically and he pointed at the holes in his cheeks. "Let the air out."

I couldn't help laughing. He always loved ghoul jokes.

Abi strolled over and flicked her visor up with a smile. "It's good to see you're in good spirits, Templeton," she said. Her bright face and blonde hair were a distinct contrast to the rest of her dull black outfit. She had the high cheekbones of a warrior, and a handsome jaw. I likened her to a Valkyrie in my mind, then chided myself harshly. _Focus on the task at hand, or you'll get yourself killed_, I warned.

"Oh, trust me, I'm peachy," I said.

"Ready to go, boys?" she asked. Hughes nodded. She dropped her visor again. "Templeton?"

There was no putting it off. "I suppose so," I said.

"Good. Right, let's get going. I'll cover our backs, you two walk up-front."

So I drew my shotgun and forced myself forward.

* * *

><p>The tunnel's dark, damp air felt even more oppressive this time, now that I knew what was lurking in it. The darkness of the tunnel put me on edge, and I jumped half a mile whenever the piping suddenly hissed or groaned, which the other two found very funny, at first. But as we moved further and further from safety they too fell silent. The water got deeper as we went. When we set off, it was just ankle-deep, but after half an hour the water was threatening to come over the top of my boots. It had a foul smell, pungent and reeking and warm. I pulled the folds of my coat up over my nose and mouth to stop myself gagging. I brushed against the tunnel wall at one point, and found it coated with slimy mould and fungus. <em>What is this place?<em> I'd never seen anything like it in the metro before. _Then again_, I decided, _I'm not exactly an expert on the subject, and Abi and Hughes haven't mentioned it, so maybe it's more common than I think_. I kept my shotgun raised, braced against my shoulder, until my muscles began to cramp, and then held it there still. If there was something lurking, it would hear us splashing a mile away, but we wouldn't see it until it was mere feet in front of us, so I wanted to make sure I was as ready as I could be. I remembered Abi's prediction then.

_Maybe it just had a heightened sense of hearing or smell._

The realisation struck me like ice, numbing my insides and turning my muscles to stone. My hangover was completely forgotten in an instant. I must've stopped because the others were looking at me.

"What's the matter, Templeton?" Abi said, now much too loud to my ears. "Don't tell me you're freaking out on us already. I'm not walking you all the way ba-"

I hushed her, then whispered. "_What if you were right about the heightened senses thing?_"

I couldn't tell what kind of reaction she had, through the darkness and closed visor, but she stopped moving too. I glanced over at Hughes. Slowly, it dawned on us that if it were true, we were now in their territory, and at a severe disadvantage. They'd probably been evolving to hunt in these pitch-black tunnels since the bombs dropped, and now, after two centuries, they were the perfect predators for their environment.

We, on the other hand…

"_Flashlight_?" Abi suggested. "_If they are blind, it won't make much of a difference_." I nodded. She clipped it to the barrel of her gun. I was suddenly filled with apprehension; I expected her to turn it on and for one of those things to be there, standing just metres from us, ready to pounce and knock us down under the fetid water and...

She flicked the switch and shone it down the tunnel. Nothing.

We pressed on, with much more caution. I fought to relax my breathing. I think I'd have preferred deathclaws to these tunnel-ghouls.

We moved with tiny steps after that, trying not to make any sounds in the water. That must've gone on for about an hour. By the end of that hour the water was inches above our knees, and had flooded my boots long ago. I could no longer feel anything below the water-line. Everything was numb. The tunnel was dark. And the likelihood of getting out alive was zero.

_You can't let yourself start thinking that way,_ I told myself. _Once that starts, there's no going back. I have to be strong. Hey, the boy did it, so can you. Think of Nicole. Do it for her. Get revenge on those slimy zombie bastards._ The same thoughts rolled around my head, over and over again, like a roll of film caught on a loop, but it was better than the agonising silence of the tunnel, so I kept it up. I must've started speaking it out loud to myself after a while, because Abi told me to shut up. _Maybe I am going crazy,_ I thought, until I remembered what I'd been told during my time as an apprentice: "People that are going crazy don't think they're going crazy." I comforted myself with this as we skulked on through the tunnel.

The silence was definitely beginning to take its toll on me, though. I knew that talking would make it easier for the ghouls to hear us, but honestly, the water made it impossible to move completely silently, so if they were out there, they'd probably already heard us by that point anyway. So I spoke to Hughes to pass the time.

"Where do you think the boy went? He can't have gotten far out here. He'd have lost his mind. Unless he's already dead." Hughes didn't reply, so I went on. "I mean, he's been out here, what, 24 hours? We've barely been out 3, and I don't know about you, but I'm feeling the effects. But people that think they're crazy can't be crazy, right? So I'm OK. The kid is probably dead, though, if we're being realistic." I knew that he wasn't replying, and that chilled my insides more than the icy dead water ever could, but I didn't want to look back because I didn't want to know. The glow from Abi's flashlight had disappeared, too. I kept walking, talking, distracting myself, for however long you want, but when I eventually paused and there was no reply, no splashing behind me – no noise at all, I knew I had to look around.

And sure enough, nobody was there.

* * *

><p>I'm pretty sure I screamed. Then I ran, splashing through the water. <em>Fuck the noise,<em> I thought. I had to get away. So I ran back the way we came, as fast as I could. But the further I went, the higher the water climbed, until it was up to my waist. I reasoned that I must've been running the wrong way, so I turned around and backtracked, but the water was still rising. _The tunnel's filling up._ I panicked. The pipes were my only escape. So I grabbed for the nearest pipe and pulled with all my strength to break the grate off. My fingers stung, and when I looked down they were covered in thick black blood, but I scrambled up into that pipe and crawled anyway. At the first junction I went right, but after a dozen more junctions I lost all hope of finding my way. I know I was screaming by then. Screaming and scrambling through the pitch-black service pipes, the scent of rot and mould and coppery blood in my nose, the stinging spreading up my hands to my arms and through my chest until it engulfed me entirely. I was wracked by pain, and suddenly knew I couldn't go any further. I slumped down, wondering where the others had gone, and why my fingers were sticking together.

Then I heard the howl. The same howl that I'd heard before Nic was attacked.

I fought my way to my feet and wrenched the shotgun off my back, though I wasn't quite sure when I'd even holstered it, and fired into the darkness. The bullets screeched against the metal piping like fingernails, screaming like a dying animal. I fired again, and again. The howl was behind me now, so I turned and fired behind me. Then suddenly it was below me. The floor disappeared; claws grabbed my feet and wrenched me down, down back to the metro tunnel, down under the putrid water, and I was gone.

"What do we do with him?" a soft voice said.

"I don't know. He's the doctor," a cracked voice replied. It was a jarring sound to me, croaky and broken, like an old motor. But it was familiar somehow…

"Well, we can't just leave him here," the first voice continued.

"You can carry him back, then," the other voice said. I knew I recognised it, but not from where.

"Me?" said the first voice.

"Yeah, you're the one who did all that police training. And all of your muscles are still intact." That last comment jump-started my memory. It was the voice of a ghoul. Hughes. And I was in the metro. The memories flooded back to me then, however unwelcome they were. I tried to lift my hand, but the effort was agony.

"Wait, I think he moved," Hughes said.

A rotten hand grabbed my shoulder and made me sit upright. The effort brought a torrent of water up from within my lungs. I was reduced to a long and excruciating fit of coughing. My head pulsed with pain with each convulsion, so bad that I swore I could see stars. "Where am I?" I managed. My voice sounded breathless and hoarse, foreign to my own ears.

"Templeton?" Abi's voice said. It was warm and sugary, when compared to my own, which scraped like metal.

Every breath tasted like the sludgy, unclean water of the Potomac. The scent of mould and pond-scum strangled me. I choked out a laugh. "You're back. Where the fuck did you go?"

"Where did _we_ go?" Havelock Hughes said. "Where did _you_ go?"

He wasn't making any sense. He was the one that vanished, not me. I remembered now. "I was just walking down the tunnel, then I looked back and you weren't there."

Hughes frowned. "We were there the whole time. You started raving. Saying you weren't crazy. You ignored everything Abi said. You ran, and we chased, then you jumped up and started attacking one of the pipes. We tried to pull you off, but you fell, and went under the water. We dragged you up here."

I blinked the grime out of my eyes and looked around. We were in a dingy service room, and the only light came from a sickly-yellow service light. But it was a light, and any light was a godsend in that moment. The floor was dry, too – no sign of water anywhere. I might as well have been in heaven.

"Hallucination," Abi suggested, and that sounded right to me.

"Yes," I agreed, coughing. "Most likely. A very vivid one."

Hughes muttered under his breath. "What kind of hellhole have we found ourselves in this time?"

"I don't know," Abi said, "but we aren't equipped to deal with it. We need lights, armour, more bodies, and heavy weapons."

I scoffed. My dry humour was coming back, and it couldn't have been more welcome. "And where to you suppose we get these? We aren't in Rivet City anymore, and I don't think Flak and Shrapnel run a delivery service."

Abi shoved me. "This is no time for wisecracking. Or I might actually be tempted to leave you here."

The words struck irrational, raw fear in me. "Please don't," I begged, feeling like a child.

She frowned. "Jeez, Templeton, I was only joking. Come on, on your feet. We need to get back to camp. Chief needs to know what happened down here."


End file.
